Skip to main content
. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2009 May 1.
Published in final edited form as: J Mem Lang. 2008 May;58(4):998–1011. doi: 10.1016/j.jml.2007.11.001

Table 5.

Spanish Grammar-Related Assessment Outcomes

Native Speakers Childhood Speakers Childhood Overhearers Typical Late-L2-Learners
Morphosyntax
Production
  Noun Phrase
    Number 96a (2) 86a (5) 86a (4) 88a (3)
    Gender 96a (2) 72b (6) 70b (5) 74b (3)
  Verb Phrase
    Number 99a (1) 83a,b (6) 76b (4) 76b (3)
    Person 98a (1) 77b (6) 73b (4) 71b (3)
    Verb Tense 94a (1) 53b (7) 51b (4) 47b (3)
  Sentence Repetition (Number of errors present)
    Inflectional errors .07a (.03) .21ab (.12) .49b (.13) .62b (.12)
    Lexical errors .02a (.01) .15ab (.09) .26b (.08) .22b (.08)
Grammaticality Judgment
  Accuracy 0.91a (0.01) 0.71b (0.03) 0.62c (0.02) 0.61c (0.01)
  Reaction Time (msec) 1171a (82) 2173b (397) 2352b (228) 2014b (152)
Grammatical Well-formedness
  Narrative Grammar Rating 4.9a (.04) 3.3b (.26) 2.6c (.16) 2.6c (.09)
Perception of Sentences in Noise
  No Noise 98a (1) 95a,b (3) 88b (3) 89b (2)
  Decrement Due to Noise 13a (2) 30b (5) 41b,c (5) 52c (3)

Note: Grammatical well-formedness ratings were on a 5-point scale, with higher ratings indicating more native-like performance. Mean number of error per sentence is reported for lexical vs. inflectional error analysis. For all other measures, the table indicates the mean percentage correct.